Command line interface

Part of the beauty of ESX 3.x from a hardware support standpoint was the addition of SATA as a viable install media for the hypervisor and service console. However, opening up support for SATA also included a few hiccups along the way, most related to the SATA controllers officially supported by VMware. For folks like myself who spent a lot of time with AMD-based platforms, the only real choices for SATA controllers (onboard the motherboard, not discrete) were offerings from Broadcom and nVidia. This post will highlight how to configure your ESX 3.x host to use nVidia SATA controllers.

Note: This information is available within the VMware user community as well. I am indebted to the person(s) in that community who provided this information, albeit in a slightly less “visual” way.

In the previous Future Storage System articles, we’ve covered the basic hardware foundation for what I envision to be a powerful future-orientedstorage solution for the commercial midrange. However, as you’re probably aware, hardware is meaningless without software to provide the operational capabilities that are needed to mange information. In this article, I will focus on a general design for an extensible software layer (an OS) that will provide future-oriented capability expansion as well as robust analytics, capabilities, and integration with business continuity principles. As always, please reference the diagram below.